


First, do no harm

by nea_writes



Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Gen, Lineage & Legacies, Mentions of other characters - Freeform, Necromancy, Spells & Enchantments, unreleated to the OTHER magic au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2019-02-02 17:07:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12730731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nea_writes/pseuds/nea_writes
Summary: Second, fail the firstThird, try your bestAllen Walker pledged to do no harm, but that's a bit tricky when you're a practitioner for the dead and more often than not it's the dead come back to life to kill you because you're the long lost heir to a throne you don't want anyways.He tries his best. Arguably. From certain angles.





	First, do no harm

**Author's Note:**

> I finished this way back in September and wanted to add more to it, and intended to post it in October as a spooky fic, but, well, that never happened. I genuinely love the style in this though, so hopefully I'll return to it!

_First, do no harm_

 

There's nothing quite like waking up to a ghoul in your face.

Allen watches it slowly move, struggling to follow orders with the likely dead brain it’s been stuffed with. He could probably lay there five minutes before the ghoul got its hand up somewhere level with Allen's neck, and maybe another two before it actually touched him.

As it is, Allen doesn't have time to wait for death. It tends to come to him more often than not, anyways.

With a sigh, he scoots to the side of the bed the ghoul isn't on, careful not to touch it. For all that it's slow, the fumes it emits are no joke. Touching it is sure to deteriorate Allen's skin instantly. Allen's almost curious enough to experiment with his left hand, but the day's long already and it's barely sunrise.

He makes it to the other side of bed without touching the creature, and by the time he stands the ghoul's eyes have barely raised to follow him. Stupid, slow, incredibly potent, but more hassle than they're worth. Clearly, someone's an idiot.

His room is stuffed to the gills with equipment. In all honesty, it’s his supply closet in his office, but who has time to foot it five miles back to his apartment just to sleep? Certainly not Allen. As it is, the proximity proves to be advantageous once again. He hums as he pokes through his shelves, muttering about light between breaks in notes. There's a stout wide window high up in the ceiling where daylight filters through cheap shutters. The closet's actually an addendum to his basement, where even more miscellaneous crap gathers. The window's ground level, though. He rather thought he was safe encased in pounds of dirt, though he hadn't taken into consideration an idiot sending a _ghoul_ of all things after him.

He grabs a stick of sugar cane — for emergencies, mind you — and shoves an end of it into the shutters until they fold and allow in more dusty light. Pleased with the change, he absent-mindedly nibbles on an end as he continues to forage for supplies, rolling his eyes when the ghoul begins to moan. Maybe it's finally straightened its back and has realized the new distance between it and its target?

Wishful thinking, really. Ghouls are too stupid for higher processing. They're a lot like machines, in that they take orders and carry them out sequentially, but they're incredibly inconvenient for any other task.

Killing Allen Walker was much too high an order. Allen's almost offended. Death by ghoul? A terrible way to go. Cross would never stop laughing, and Allen would be forced to reanimate himself just to shut Cross' mouth forever.

All things Allen would quite like to avoid. He has lots of plans today, after all.

With one final "a-ha!" Allen finds the last bit for his concoction and, with a final thoughtful look at the ghoul, shuffles out the closet door that hangs on one hinge. It gives a horrendous squeak when Allen opens it, and he wonders if the sleeping brew he tried the night before wasn't more potent than he thought. Maybe he should change it a bit before marketing it for sale? Something to consider.

He makes his way through the shelves littering his dark basement, snapping his fingers and cursing as all but one light turns on. It was time to renew the spell.

Up the stairs and he breathes in deeply, relishing the clean air the ghoul hasn't contaminated. He was being a tad too mean, all things considered. Anyone else would've been dead the instant the ghoul set eyes on them, frozen under its stare until it crept close enough to touch. Allen's just lucky that way. Unlucky. Depends on the day.

"Glass half-full," Allen mutters, walking straight to his mostly uncluttered desk to dump his new supplies on.

"Are you sleep walking?"

Startled, Allen whirls around to find Link, by contract his assistant and secretary but in reality resembling something closer to a babysitter. Allen would probably be offended if he didn't severely need Link's help. Link's face is good for things like this, Allen thinks, observing the scowl marring his features. Even for a world like their's, no one wants to conduct business with as cursed a name as Allen Walker.

In the now, Link looks, at best, disgusted, and at worst, truly contemplating whether his friendship with Allen is worth standing in his mess of an office. It's cute Link ever thinks he'd really cut Allen off. Link's just not the type, to Allen's immense benefit.

"Good morning!" Allen grins, realizing only then that he's still in his sleep wear, which consists of boxers and a t-shirt. Link doesn't care, though. He's seen Allen in worse conditions. Allen musses a hand through his hair to attempt some semblance of order and rubs the sleep from his eyes. "What are you doing here so early?"

"Something confused the protection ward, so I came to investigate. I thought Tyki had broken in again and that you might need some... mediating."

Allen barked an amused laugh, turning back to the scattered work on his desk. "I almost wish he had. Could've been useful for once, hmm. A shame. It was a ghoul."

"A what?" Link cries, by all rights confused.

"A ghoul," Allen confirms, grabbing a cylinder of this, a scale of that, a stirrer. He measures and combines some ingredients, and then asks, "Mind if you make a brew?"

"A ghoul of all things," Link mutters, but he moves to fulfill Allen's request, which was really to have time without Link's constant questions so he could finish the spell. He hums a four-note song, starting low, lower, then high, and finally back at the beginning. He ends and the spell is finished, settling into a nice deathly shade.

"Lovely," Allen says, pleased. "Link," he calls back, grinning when Link grumbles at attention. "Be a doll and open the windows? He's going to make quite a stink when I'm done."

"Of course," Link says, rolling his eyes as he finishes with the percolator. "You couldn't make the spell to chase away the smell as well?"

"Well, I could," Allen allows, carefully holding the flask in one hand and tapping his chin with the index finger of the other, "but I'm so used to charging for additions that I... forgot."

"You forgot," Link mutters darkly, coughing when the shades of one window shower him in dust. "When is the last time you've cleaned?" Link asks, appalled.

"I forgot!" Allen says cheerily, watching Link swipe a finger through the dust, make a face, consider the wall beside the window, and then shrug as he wipes it off there. "Mmm, you love me. Filth and all."

"I most certainly do not," Link sniffs. He opens the last window and the room is flooded with light from the Eastern sunrise. The breeze is light and just this side of chilled, and Allen can hear seagulls begin to cry. It's a nice day.

"Determined to keep it that way," Allen murmurs to himself, pep fully restored.

Link looks at him with exasperation. "You would think," Link begins, brow furrowing, "that after two years I'd be used to your... quirks."

Allen laughs and goes back out the door leading to his basement without answering him. Down the stairs, through the shelves Link hasn't gotten around to reorganizing yet, and into the closet. The ghoul has made progress! A scant three steps from the bed.

"Poor thing," Allen says, meeting its sunken decayed eyes. He imagines there might have been color to them, a kind of dead fish-eyed look, some maggots, and, before all that, actual life. They might have been brown, or even green. It's impossible to tell who they belong to now. "You didn't ask for this, did you?"

"Walker!" Link shouts into the basement. "Do not sympathize with the dead! It does you no service!"

"Yes!" Allen calls back dutifully. He wishes he could cup the ghoul's face and offer comfort. Remembers his earlier thoughts about experimentation.

There is nothing in this world that has hurt his left arm.

Not spells, magic, enchantments, steel, iron, salt, holy water, rosemary, sage, nor brute force, and believe you him, Allen has tried. Cross tried. Link tried. Even Kanda did (gleefully at that)! His arm was a curse of the worst kind, inflicted at birth.

Maybe a ghoul's touch would decay it.

Locking eyes with the ghoul, Allen holds his breath as he lifts his left hand, slowly rising to be level with a hollow cheek. The skin is rough, dark from death, disgusting. He grazes it with black nails, waits.

Nothing.

Exhaling, Allen fully cups its cheek and offers a smile to hide his disappointment. "It's time to go to sleep now. There are people waiting for you."

It moans, a disturbing sound that would rise the hair off your flesh. Allen cracks a grin. "Don't go fighting it, understand?"

He lifts the potion up, tilts the contents to his lips, and swallows it all. Then, in a voice unlike his own, he chants a lullaby. Of goodbye, of redemption, of souls to be saved, of heroes grand and great, finding hearth and home. They aren't in a language Allen recognizes, but it’s what he knows, as easily as he knows to breathe, to eat, to sleep.

A legacy he was born with, and one that he inherited.

He passes his hand from its forehead to its chin, and the ghoul closes its eyes. With one last word, it collapses into nothing, gone. No evidence remains, only the scattered dust motes idly moving to fill the empty space.

Sighing, Allen carries the glass back, knowing Link will scold him if he leaves it behind.

There are many ways to kill a ghoul. You can it purge of its heart, the only organ that beats, and grind it to fine powder. That, you then bury in the ground, back to dust. You can extricate its brain and, lobe by lobe, dissect it. Burn each piece. There's also the most ultimate simple way, and that is to cremate it.

All those options, Allen knows, bring terrible pain to it. Allen could also, by blood, control it if he so chose. He has dominion like that. Over the dead. By swallowing the potions, though, he can change the effect his voice has.

Stupid, slow, and lumbering, but it feels.

Unfortunately, Allen knows this by legacy. Fortunately. Depends on the day.

"Glass half-full," Allen forcefully reminds himself when he reaches his office. Link eyes him warily but says nothing.

In the mug of coffee Link offers, Allen remembers again to be grateful for this friendship.

**Author's Note:**

> nea_chi | twitter  
> nea-writes | tumblr


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